


when i get low

by redpaint



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Crossdressing, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Party, Recreational Drug Use, Threesome - M/M/M, my most longwinded pornography yet!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:28:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24402064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpaint/pseuds/redpaint
Summary: It's 1926. George and Alex attend a party at the Norris's city house and get cozy with the host.
Relationships: Alexander Albon/Lando Norris/George Russell
Comments: 20
Kudos: 80





	when i get low

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> every plotty fic i post results in an equal and opposite porny fic. this is that fic.
> 
> warning for enthusiastic sex under the influence of champagne and marijuana.
> 
> this one's for CRP, who blew us all away with this pairing in the first place. i love you so much and i hope you're well <3

George ought to be in bed. He ought to be asleep in his parent’s country house, surrounded by his piles of luggage. There’s a boat leaving for Barcelona the next day, and if he’s not on it then he will be surrendering himself to a summer holiday spent in suffocating bucolic isolation. It’s not _his_ fault that Alex pulled into the drive in his father’s car without phoning first. It’s a magnificent machine, sleek and loud and _fast_ , and driving fast is always better when you’ve got a destination in mind, which is how George ends up standing in the foyer of this richly decorated London townhome in the middle of a roaring party.

The house is larger than George’s parents’ own place in the city, nearly cavernous in its magnitude. Fashionably-dressed students congregate in every available space. The host must have put out the invite to the women’s colleges as well, because the crowd isn’t the usual boys’ club George associates with Oxford parties. High-tempo jazz comes from the back of the house, barely audible over the din of conversation and clinking glasses.

“How’d you get an invite to this? Wait, scratch that, how come I _didn’t_ get an invite? It looks like half of Oxbridge is here.”

Alex rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “You get invited to parties when you don’t spend the entire term in the library.”

“You know I didn’t spend the _entire_ term—” Alex cuts him off by pulling him down the hallway by his shirtsleeve, with the insistence that there’s champagne to be found somewhere.

They find champagne—a tower of glasses, he can imagine his mother cringing at the gaudiness of it—in the dining room. Alex snags one and throws it back immediately, before reaching for two more and handing one to George. “You know Lando, right? Everyone does.”

“Lando Norris? Isn’t he the one who wrote a rude message into the Hertford quad with a motorbike?” George tries his best to sound casual, but Alex has always been too perceptive for his own good. He slugs back his glass as well, then grabs himself another.

“Don’t sound so starstruck, G. He’s not actually that cool. Anyway, his parents are in America for the summer, and you know he’s got more money than sense, so all of us lucky bastards get treated to this.” Alex holds up his flute. “Here’s to a year of putting up with you in tutorials.”

“Right back at you,” George says, and taps his glass against Alex’s. It sloshes a bit over the rim, soaking the cuff of his shirt. “Christ, sorry.” The outfit is all Alex’s, nicked from his house on their way here.

“I think we passed a bathroom off the hall, come on.” Alex grabs his clean hand and hauls him back through the house. They find the bathroom pretty easily, mostly because the door is open, throwing bright light into the darkened hall. One person is passed out in the empty bathtub while another retches over the toilet. They spot George and Alex in the doorframe, offer a weak wave, and promptly return to vomiting.

“Maybe we can try upstairs?” George asks, turning on his heel.

It feels a bit like trespassing, stepping onto the upstairs landing, but there are also unmistakable sounds coming from behind some of the closed doors. They’re clearly not the only ones making themselves at home here. The first unlocked bathroom they find is all marble except for an immense, heavy mirror that spans one wall. As they wash off their sticky hands, George has to admire the pair of them in the mirror. He’s lucky that Alex’s clothes fit him so well, even though Alex stuck him with the older getup. Alex himself looks slim but solid, handsome even as he makes silly faces at his reflection. He’s wearing one of those fashionable tight-fitting waistcoats that hugs his ribs. Maybe it’s the champagne going to George’s head already, but he can’t help imagining how soft the fabric is, how it might be warm from Alex’s body heat, under the jacket—

A knock on the doorframe startles them both. “Sorry gentlemen, are you lost?”

George quickly wipes off his hands on his trouser legs and turns to apologize, but he stops cold. Lando Norris himself is leaning casually against the doorframe, but it’s not being discovered by their host that shocks George into silence. No, it’s that Lando’s wearing a straight-cut emerald dress, his eyes ringed in dark kohl. Beaded fringe sways around his knees as he rocks on his heels. He’s not wearing any shoes, just a pair of sheer stockings marred by runs.

George shouldn’t stare. His parents taught him better than that. But Lando’s mouth is pursed and someone’s smeared it with pink lipstick and this is the closest George has ever seen him and there’s a _lot_ to take in, alright?

Lando looks between the two of them, frowning, before he breaks and bursts out into laughter. “You should see your faces.”

Alex does not seem as dumbstruck by it, playing along without missing a beat. “I’m sorry miss, have we met? Do you need the loo?” he asks, bowing in a caricature of chivalry.

Lando scoffs and bats him on the shoulder which, ow, might hurt a little more considering the size of the ring he’s wearing. “How long have you been here? You should have found me straight away, I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Lando, it’s been less than a month. Anyway, we just got here, but you’ve clearly been keeping yourself busy.”

“Lost a bet. If you see a girl down there wearing my suit try not to spill anything on her. It’s bespoke Italian. Anyway, are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

George has to stop himself staring, _again_. “I’m George.” He puts out his hand for a handshake, which immediately feels stupidly formal. He needs another glass of champagne. He is clearly not drunk enough to be involved in this world yet.

Lando still smiles sweetly and shakes his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, George. Thanks for coming.” The sound of smashing glass comes from downstairs. Lando looks over his shoulder but doesn’t move. “It’s all gotten a bit out of hand. You two are the smart ones for coming up here— less likely to get vomited on. Or arrested. Both are possible.” There are a handful of moles dotting Lando’s cheek and jaw. George can’t tell if they’re natural or if they’ve been applied by whoever did his makeup.

“Sounds like there are a lot of other people up here, uh, enjoying themselves too,” Alex says. It’s perfectly timed with a loud moan from down the hall. Alcohol and nerves and an unwelcome edge of arousal are all conspiring to turn George pink, no matter how hard he fights it.

Lando just shrugs. “‘s long as it’s not in my room.” He reaches down and retrieves a key from a concealed pocket in the dress. “Come on then.”

He leads them further into the house, stocking feet padding on the long Persian rug. The dress makes him gently rattle and glitter as he walks. George finds it hard to keep his eyes off him. From behind, Lando might be a broad, sturdy girl. His haircut isn’t that different from a few of the more stylish girls downstairs. Lando unlocks a door near the end of the hall and slips inside without a word. Alex raises his eyebrows at George but follows Lando into his room. George has no clue what they’re doing. He’s heard so much about this guy, he expected him to be a bit of an ass, aloof and untouchable. Instead, he’s turned up dressed like a damn Hollywood starlet and invited the two of them into his room with barely a bat of a lacquered eyelash. George straightens the damp cuffs of his shirt and jacket as he goes in.

Lando’s sitting cross legged on the bed, a large tray in front of him. The pose makes the hem of his dress ride up a bit onto his thigh, showing the tops of the ill-fitting stockings. They’re loose around his thighs, held up by utilitarian garters. George forces himself to look at anything else. For example, Lando’s hands, which are making quick work of a packet of cigarette paper and a couple piles of what looks like loose-leaf tobacco. Alex is leaning over the tray, poking at one of the piles.

“Where’d you get it?” he asks, crumbling it between his fingers.

“I dunno, a mate brought it back from some trip and ended up not liking it as much as he thought he would.” Lando rolls the cigarette between his fingers before finishing it with a decisive lick on the seam. He looks over at George, who’s still standing near the door. “D’you smoke reefers?”

George hasn’t smoked since he was twelve, when he stole a cigarette from his father’s pack and gave himself the mother of all headaches. “Yeah, of course,” he says. Alex knows it’s a lie, but for once he doesn’t take the opportunity to give him grief. He just gives George a pointed look and beckons him towards the bed.

Lando strikes an incense match, the perfumey smell quickly spreading throughout the room. It’s quickly layered over with the peculiar smell of the cigarette— tobacco mixed with something earthy and herbal. Lando furrows his eyebrows as he takes the first puffs. He coughs a little, then goes again, more confident this time.

There are lipstick stains on the end of the cigarette. It’s a dainty little thing, pinched between two of Lando’s broad fingers. Smoke swirls between the three of them and stings George’s eyes. He reaches for the cigarette.

Holding in the coughs hurts, but he thinks he does an admirable job. His throat feels scorched and his tongue goes dry but Lando is looking up at him with big admiring eyes and George can’t stop himself taking another drag. “Save some for the rest of us, _jesus_ ,” Alex mutters and plucks the cigarette from his grasp.

George’s head swims a bit, but not enough to stop him watching Alex take long draws of smoke, all grace and practiced ease. It makes him weirdly jealous. It makes him feel warm and uncomfortably aware of his own skin. Alex catches him looking and fucking winks, the cocky bastard, finally lowering the cigarette from his mouth.

Alex holds the butt out between them in silent offering, holding the smoke in his lungs a second longer. Ash falls off the end, missing the tray and singeing the duvet. George shakes his head and sits on the edge of the mattress; the warmth is already running down his limbs. Lando reaches up to take it, stealing one last drag from the smouldering remains before stubbing it out in the ashtray.

“Thanks for not making fun of my outfit,” Lando says, twirling the ring around his finger. “I’m glad I ran into you guys. I didn’t really want to go back downstairs.”

Alex cuffs him on the shoulder. “I’m sure they all want to see you.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? A party is great and all, it just stops being so fun when people expect it from you. Sometimes you just want to have fun for yourself, not be a host.” Lando folds his arms over his chest, clearly more bothered by it than he’s letting on.

George has to think hard to make sure his words fit together right. “I mean, I’m fine to stay up here then. If that’s what you want.”

Alex seems less affected by the drug, leaning back on one hand and cocking his head at Lando. “Yeah, you can tell us about that bet you lost.”

Lando opens his mouth to speak, then closes it, thinking. He shrugs a little. “Well, there actually wasn’t any bet. One of the St. Agnes girls suggested it and her friends egged me on and it felt nice when they did my makeup and well—” He gestures vaguely to himself by way of explanation. His awkwardness should preclude him from looking graceful, but it doesn’t stop George from thinking it anyway.

“Oh,” George says, not wanting to say the wrong thing and push Lando away.

“And then I didn’t really want to take it off, you know? The guys downstairs would make a laughing stock of me.” Lando’s gone a bit quieter. It’s disarming— everything George has heard about him gave the impression that he would be larger than life.

“I think you look really nice,” Alex breathes, his hand covering Lando’s. It could be just a small gesture of comfort. Seeing it still makes something spark hot in George’s stomach, envy and the fear of somehow being excluded from this smallest of touches.

“Me too,” George spits out, shuffling closer. The space between the three of them is subtle and weirdly intimate and so unlike the raucous party downstairs that it feels like a different planet. The effects of the cigarette means his mouth is uncooperative, but he manages to pull together the words despite it. “It, uh, it suits you.”

Lando smiles at that, a smile that feels oddly private, even though anyone else could walk in and see the three of them sat on the bed together. This is unknown territory. George should be at home in bed, not admiring the pleasant curve of the lip of the university’s best known troublemaker. It’s so easy to let his eyes follow the line of his collarbone from the neckline of his dress all the way to the hollow of his throat. He should go back downstairs. If Alex catches him looking he’ll never hear the end of it.

“I’ve heard about you, you know,” Lando says, leaning in closer toward George, as though he’s revealing a secret. “You’re one of those guys who races their cars around when they think they can’t get into trouble.”

George has fought to keep that a secret for the past two years. All anyone is supposed to think he does is kill himself for his studies so he can become a barrister, like he was always supposed to be. The only person who really knows what he gets up to on those odd weekends is— “Alex, I can’t believe you _told_ him.”

By all accounts George should really be freaking out right now, but for some reason he can only laugh. _Lando Norris,_ the guy who had masterminded the placing of two bicycles on the spire of Bodleian Library last term, was looking at _him_ with wide, awed eyes all caked in kohl.

Alex holds up his hands placatingly. “I didn’t mean to, I swear! It was just there was one night you won and there was too much gin and—”

“What’s it like, going that fast?” Lando cuts Alex off with a hand on his thigh.

George swallows hard. “It’s, uh, hard to describe. Scary, sometimes.” Lando keeps looking at him eagerly, clearly wanting more. “I could take you for a drive sometime, if you want.” What the hell is he saying? He’s going to be in Spain for the next two months, and Lando’s going to forget his name in the next two hours, he’s sure of it. Except— well, Lando keeps his hand on Alex’s leg while he leans in towards George. He must be wearing the girls’ perfume as well, he smells strangely sweet, like a bakery.

“I’d like that,” Lando says, and oh, he’s _close_ now, close enough that George can count those moles on his cheek. Between smoking the cigarette and biting his lip, Lando’s lipstick has mostly smudged off, leaving the center of his mouth looking pink and soft. George feels clumsy leaning in to kiss him, but he’s reassured when Lando pushes back against him. Lando tastes like bitter smoke and sweet champagne. The sequins on his dress dig into George’s palms where they’ve come up to rest on Lando’s hips.

“Oh, wow. George—” Alex’s voice breaks the spell. He sounds breathy, a little in awe. It doesn’t stop George from blushing harder and looking towards the door, drawing up an escape plan in his head. Lando is looking between him and Alex, waiting for someone to say _something_ /

“Sorry, I don’t really know what got into me,” George says, extricating himself from the bed. “I’ll go.”

Alex stops him with a hand on the collar of his jacket. George looks at him for a second, frozen, before Alex hauls him forward and kisses him as well. Alex is all brash confidence and grand gestures, like always. He licks into George’s mouth without any warning, giggling into the kiss when George jumps in surprise.

“You can’t just copy me like that,” Lando complains, but there’s no real bite to it. He sounds as breathless as George feels. George pulls away from the kiss, panting.

He’s fixed in place by the two of them, caught between Alex’s firm front and Lando’s wide, greedy stare. He can feel himself trying to rationalize his way out of this, or construct an argument elaborate enough to justify what he’s doing here, but it’s all useless. If driving cars on the limit has contributed to his academic training at all, it’s taught him that sometimes you have to operate on instinct alone. And every instinct in his body is telling him to stay, to do it again, to get closer, hotter, _now._ It’s an electric impulse, running down his spine as Lando sits up onto his knees to kiss Alex, completing the circle. They’re all so close that they must feel George’s breath on their cheeks. It’s his turn to watch in stunned silence, drinking in the sight of the two of them, as beautiful as angels but not nearly as chaste.

There’s no reason to keep denying himself what he’s been wanting. George runs his hands under Alex’s jacket, pushing it off his shoulders. Alex helps him along, shrugging it off and throwing it over the side of the bed. His broad shoulders strain the fabric of his shirt. George had noticed it before, sure, during tutorials and over drinks in each other’s rooms and across library tables, but he’d never considered what it would be like to _touch._ He touches now, hands skimming over Alex’s arms and chest, kissing the back of his neck as his hands come up to undo the first few buttons of his shirt.

Alex stops kissing Lando to look down at George’s handiwork. “Let me,” he mumbles, batting George’s hands out of the way and making quick work of the rest of the buttons. The long, dark scar on his collarbone stands out in the dim light, a reminder that sometimes instinct alone can get you into trouble. Lando leans in to kiss it without hesitation. Alex flinches a little, leaning back further so Lando can kiss down his chest and stomach. He stops when his lips reach Alex’s belt, but just barely.

“I think I’m ready to take the dress off now. Help a girl out?” Lando’s leaned over Alex, almost pornographic even though he’s fully clothed. His ass is stuck in the air, his face pressed close to the growing bulge in Alex’s slacks.

The silk-covered buttons slip under George’s fingers, but eventually they give way. The back of the dress parts like a velvet curtain, revealing the soft planes of Lando’s back behind them. It’s heavy enough that it falls under its own weight, slipping down Lando’s arms, hanging loosely from his front. However, it still clings to the curve of Lando’s hips. George runs his hands up Lando’s thigh and under the hem, digs his fingers into the muscle of his ass. No undergarments, but then, the dress never would have allowed for anything like that.

“I like how you look in this dress,” George admits, looking down into Lando’s eyes. He’d said as much earlier, but he wants to say it again, wants Lando to hear how much this is turning his world upside down. “I like your makeup. You’re as pretty as most of the girls downstairs.” Lando nods along like he _knows,_ like this was all some sort of plan to rob George of his self control and drag him down into unapologetic temptation. He pushes his ass back into George’s palm, shameless.

George clears his throat. “I want to fuck you.” It’s good rhetoric to be clear about your aims.

“I want it— want you both,” Lando replies, half-muffled with how he’s speaking directly into the front of Alex’s trousers. Alex groans at that, the deep sound George associates with when he makes a particularly good or a particularly bad joke. It just seems to spur Lando on. He undoes Alex’s belt and pushes his clothes down just enough to get his half-hard cock out of his underwear. Alex looks shy for maybe the first time since George met him, his face half-turned and pressed into the duvet.

Lando has no such reservations, licking and sucking at Alex’s cock like he needs it to breathe. They’re fucking _doing this_. Or they would be, if George wasn’t just staring slack-mouthed at the sight of Lando’s lips stretched all shiny and tight around the head of Alex’s dick. He shakes himself out of it and pushes the skirt of Lando’s dress up around his hips, exposing his ass to the warm air of the room. Lando’s skin is so, so hot under George’s fingertips. George is sweating through Alex’s shirt. This could be the circles of hell, each progressively hotter than the next, except Lando looks like an angel, and so does Alex, and George thinks this is as close to heavenly as he’s felt in a long time.

Alex looks down his body at Lando and moans again, biting his knuckle in a piss-poor attempt to stifle it. “You’re so good at that. _Fuck,_ why didn’t we do this sooner?”

Lando pulls off Alex’s cock with a pop, stroking it in his hand as he looks between Alex and George. “You two, you never—?”

Alex shakes his head. “No, never.”

Alex is right, of course. They should have done this sooner. Alex has always been deeply familiar and deeply _off-limits,_ except now all the rules have been turned on their heads. George squeezes Lando’s hips a little tighter. He’ll have to properly thank him later. For now he doesn’t have the words, and besides, he has more urgent needs, for example, “D’you have any Vaseline?”

Lando tosses his head towards the chest of drawers across the room. “Top left, with the socks.”

George strips off his coat and shirt as he goes, his limbs more uncoordinated than he realized. The soft sucking sounds pick up again from the bed, loud enough to be heard even as George rummages around in the drawer until his fingers close around the jar. He loses his trousers and underwear on the way back, crawling back onto the mattress totally naked. When he slots himself behind Lando again he can feel Lando’s heat down his whole front. Lando’s back is a soft, graceful line connecting the three of them. George follows it from the back of Lando’s bobbing head to the small of his back.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” George whispers, slicking up his fingers. He rubs over Lando’s hole softly at first, not wanting to push too quickly, but Lando’s enthusiastic whines having him sliding two fingers in soon enough. Lando is velvet soft, all tight, impossible heat. George’s dick throbs sympathetically.

“Does he look good, G?” Alex murmurs, not taking his eyes off Lando’s face for a second.

It feels wrong, talking about Lando like he’s some kind of pretty object, but it’s also so hot George needs to bite his lip and _breathe_. His mouth is so, so dry. When he responds his voice sounds shredded, barely there. “He looks really good. You should see him spread out on my fingers.”

Lando twists his head to look at George. “You should see me spread out on your cock,” he says, shameless, with a rude thrust backwards. His ass is so firm, inviting. George wants to haul him back until they’re as close as they can possibly be, linked together like the elements of a steel chain. Alex is watching them with amused eyes, replacing his cock in Lando’s mouth with his thumb, watching Lando suck it with just as much enthusiasm.

“Alright, alright, you’re a needy one, aren’t you?” George asks, all bravado that he doesn’t feel. He slips a third finger in along the first two, marveling at how easily Lando takes it. There must be a whole other side to him that the gossip doesn’t even capture. How else can he do this, take cock like it’s _easy_? The way Lando had looked at him, those starstruck eyes— maybe it’s stupid but it made him feel _special_ , like this is more than a quick, tipsy fuck during a party.

“Shut up and fuck me already,” Lando groans, and George _does_ , his fingers grasping for purchase in the folds of Lando’s dress as the head of his cock slips into Lando, millimeters turned into miles by the slow, steady pressure. Lando moans senselessly into Alex’s thigh, arching his back in a tight, sharp curve. George fits his hands to Lando’s shoulders and pulls him backwards, until his back is flush against George’s front and his head can lean back to rest on George’s shoulder. Like this, his breath is hot on George’s cheek, coming out in sharp little puffs. “‘S fucking _good_ ,” Lando breathes. It makes George fuck into him a little further. It’s mesmerizing, watching the effect his smallest actions have on Lando’s body.

The most obvious effect is Lando’s cock, which is curving out from his body, under the bunched-up dress. It bounces with George’s thrusts, hard and pink. _Almost pretty,_ George’s brain supplies. Lando would be pretty, even without the dress and the makeup. George feels lucky he never saw Lando up close before now. He would have been totally fucked a long time ago. How is he supposed to spend long nights in the library when he knows he could be doing _this,_ so overwhelmed by Lando and Alex and the possibilities between them, all of it narrowed down to slick pressure on his cock and the chorus of little sounds he’s drawing out of Lando with each thrust.

Alex sits up, finally tossing his jacket and shirt to the side. He looks obscene, his dick shiny and wet, peeking out from between the open fly of his trousers, his hair all mussed up. From the waist up, he might have just had a long night out. But George can’t stop staring at his cock, wishing he could be everywhere at once, touching everyone at once.

It’s maddening, wanting to be as close to both Lando and Alex as possible. Alex stays just out of reach, shuffling forward just enough to hold Lando’s face between his hands and kiss him deeply. Lando pants into the kiss, his eyes screwed up tight almost like he’s in pain. He only tenses up further when Alex circles him in a tight fist, the sharp rhythm of George’s thrusts pushing Lando to fuck into Alex’s hand. He’s tight—so _fucking_ tight—and George won’t last very long like this.

He opens his mouth to say something, a warning, but it draws Alex’s attention enough that he leans over Lando’s shoulder to kiss George instead. The surprise sends heat surging between his legs, the hypnotic, unpredictable slide of two bodies against his own slowly shutting down his higher thought processes.

“Don’t stop,” Lando whispers, a desperate little plea. One of his hands is gripping George’s hip so hard it almost hurts, as though that could keep him as close as he wants.

George turns his head until Alex’s lips find his jaw. “I can’t— I’m going to—” His eyes close involuntarily, but the last thing he sees is Alex’s arm moving in quick, jerking motions, frantic enough to match George’s pace and reduce Lando to a shivering mess between them.

“Come on, come on, I want to see you—” George’s brain is too far gone to decipher whether Alex is saying it to him or to Lando and he doesn’t care, because the encouragement is enough to push him over the edge and then some. His world narrows to the ribbons of heat that tighten around his body until they finally snap, leaving him hunched over Lando’s back and panting like he’s just run a marathon. Lando lasts a few seconds longer, trembling beneath George’s weight before he jerks once, twice, then collapses into Alex. The smell of sex just gets stronger, mingling with the last whispers of smoke.

George feels a bit wrung out afterwards, still a bit floaty from the endorphins and the drugs but also _clean,_ his worries about tomorrow and the boat and Spain somehow expunged in this bed. Maybe it’s just catharsis, or just the layers of intoxication, but he can’t imagine doing anything else than laying down in this bed for the foreseeable future. He slips out of Lando and lands somewhere to the side, his arm thrown over his face. He distantly recognizes someone pawing at his thigh and the sound of wet kisses nearby, but he waits for the blood in his ears to quiet before he turns to look.

Alex and Lando are kissing maybe three centimeters from his face, Alex half on top of Lando with his cock in his hand and his trousers pushed down to his knees. The hand on George’s thigh is Lando’s. George watches it tense and relax as Lando rides out the aftershocks.

George is tempted just to watch— they both look a bit messed up and wild, Lando’s curls sticking to his forehead with sweat, cock still slick with come, Alex’s body shaking with the effort of holding himself up on one arm and desperately chasing orgasm with his other. George wants to catalogue every millimeter of the sight and save it for later. He wants to see it play behind his eyelids when he lays in his bed in Barcelona, inevitably kept awake by the memory of this night.

But it just seems unfair to leave Alex to his own devices. Lando looks too boneless to do anything but lie there and open himself up for Alex’s kisses. And if George leaves tomorrow without knowing what it’s like to having Alex react to George’s hands on him, George might end up jumping off a cliff on the Costa Brava. He pushes Alex’s hand away. “Let me—”

Alex whines higher than George ever thought he could, still kissing Lando like his life depends on it. His reaction snaps George out of his daze a little, gives him a new goal. He wants to see Alex’s face when he comes, wants it with every hazy, fucked-out cell in his body. He shuffles down the bed until he can take Alex into his mouth the way he’s always liked when girls do. The position is awkward—Lando’s knee digs into George’s sternum— but it’s worth it for the feeling of Alex’s hand in his hair, urging him forward as much as his good manners will let him. George closes his eyes and listens to the moans coming from Alex’s chest and tries not to gag too much.

“George—” Alex bites out his name as a warning. George nearly misses it, the way Alex’s face transforms, so he goes from placid to looking nearly in pain, every muscle tense and his teeth looking close to tearing through his bottom lip as he comes. The skin between his collarbones is golden and glistening in the light, his chest heaving with exertion that slowly turns to laughter. Alex sits up, still out of breath and fighting down giggles, looking down at the two of them like he’s the luckiest man on earth. Yeah, there’s no way George will be forgetting this. Fuck the cathedrals of Spain, this is the finest sight he’s going to see over these holidays.

⁂

George catches the boat with a few minutes to spare. He’s out of breath on the gangway and his luggage is a mess and he’s sure he’s forgotten something important, but he makes it, and that’s what matters. He leans on the railing and watches the shoreline slip away, feeling the pleasant stretch in his sore muscles. Sleeping three to a bed wasn’t the most restful, but it was worth it. His hand goes to the chunky costume ring in his pocket.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” Alex had muttered, still half-asleep under the sheets in Lando’s bed. “You’d better write.”

Lando had pulled him in for one last kiss before he ran out to the taxi idling outside. He slipped the ring into George’s hand before he pulled away. Lando looked soft, somehow, in the cool morning light, no longer the force of nature George assumed him to be. “You can give it back to me when you guys take me on that drive.”

George had nodded and left the house before he could change his mind. He slips his pinky finger through the band and imagines that it’s still warm from Lando’s body heat. _Una promesa,_ he practices, looking out over the edge of the deck and across the sea, the infinite and unknown expanse, bookended by a destination.

**Author's Note:**

> title from the ella fitzgerald song (when i get low i get high). haha. very funny.
> 
> the first draft of this fic kept referencing george taking a train to spain because i'm a terrible american with no sense of geography.
> 
> find me on tumblr @ redpaint


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